


Barter

by kay_obsessive



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, Post-Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22607446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_obsessive/pseuds/kay_obsessive
Summary: If Emily had known the Void would spit Delilah right back out into the world not half a year after she put her there, she might have just killed her when she’d had her moment.
Relationships: Delilah Copperspoon/Emily Kaldwin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Barter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [provetheworst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/provetheworst/gifts).



“Ah, such a kind and generous child. Always bringing the scraps from her plate to toss to the caged hounds herself.”

Emily gritted her teeth and shook her head as she closed the heavy door behind her. Delilah’s taunts were more irritating than infuriating now that she had no power to back them up, but that irritation couldn’t really be overstated. She hadn’t even bothered to turn around before beginning her sarcastic speech, leaning petulantly against the bars of her cell and staring at the back wall instead, confident in the knowledge that Emily was the only one to ever visit this particular prisoner.

For now, Emily was the only one to know this prisoner still lived.

She knelt down to place the tray of food she had brought – fresh and untouched from the kitchens, despite Delilah’s complaints – on the floor at the edge of the cell and slid it through the small gap below the bottom bar. “You act like this isn’t more than you deserve,” she said, standing back up. “Anyone else would have seen you executed twice over.”

The cell door rattled on its hinges as Delilah suddenly turned and gripped the bars in both her hands. “I don’t need to hear from you what I _deserve_ ,” she snarled, the near-bored tone of her earlier mocking entirely gone, fury and despair now burning mingled in her eyes.

Because Delilah deserved the world, as far as she believed. And Emily had given it to her, let her hold it in her hands, see all her desires made real for beautiful long days (or was it months, years, decades even to her?) before it all crumbled back into ash.

If Emily had known the Void would spit her right back out into the world not half a year after she put her there, she might have just killed Delilah when she’d had her moment. Whether that thought was born out of frustration or pity, she still couldn’t decide.

But she remembered how Delilah had been bleeding when she found her tossed back out onto the throne room floor, a pattern of cuts on her hand in perfect alignment to the deep black symbol that had once been there. She didn’t know if it had been the Void tearing the Outsider’s gifts away or Delilah desperately trying to carve them back into place, but the magic was gone and Delilah had grieved it like a lost lover, had sat limp and unprotesting while Emily had carefully cleaned her wounds and then locked her away. 

Emily held Delilah’s angry gaze and reached out, traced the faint, raised lines still healing on her skin, and now that still lingering grief had a hint of fire behind it. Delilah flinched and jerked her hand away, retreated quickly to the far wall of her cell with her back turned again.

Emily’s hand lingered in the air, then dropped to her side.

“Whatever you might think, I didn’t want you to suffer,” she said, after a long moment of staring at Delilah’s hunched shoulders, “not at the end, anyway. I… I understood what you wanted and why, even if I couldn’t understand all you were willing to do to get it. I was going to take back what was mine no matter what, but if you could be happy in your own world when it was all done… well, that seemed like a better way to finish things than one more dead body.” She paused, took a step back, and sighed. “I didn’t expect this to happen.”

“Who could have?” Delilah mumbled, barely loud enough to hear. Then her demeanor swiftly changed again, back to something much more familiar. Her back straightened and her shoulders dropped, and when she turned around, her lips were curved in a teasing smirk. “Still, it’s good to hear you have come to care for me after all,” she said, voice low and almost purring. She drew closer, let her hands rest on the bars of her cell. “I could care for you as well, if you let me.”

Emily laughed at the boldness of it. “You want me to release you.”

“Of course,” Delilah said with a shrug. “I’ve spent more time than you could know being confined, and I’m willing to barter for mercy.” She reached out, brushed her fingertips across Emily’s cheek and smiled when she shuddered. “I don’t believe what I have to offer is of no interest to you…”

Emily made no denial. Delilah had not gained all of her followers through intimidation or promises of power alone. She had an undeniable allure, something that drew people in, made them curious, made them want to be close to her, made them want more. This was the oldest of Delilah’s weapons, the one most honed to deadly effect, and no power in any world could rob her of it.

Emily wet her lips with her tongue before speaking. “You can’t expect me to trust you running free after everything you did.”

“And what could I do now?” Delilah demanded. Her hand on Emily’s cheek clenched slightly, the tips of her nails just shy of digging in. “I have no power here – you made certain of that. I know when I’m beaten.”

Emily almost laughed again at that. This woman who had come up from nothing, who had gathered followers loyal enough to overthrow an empire for her, who had reached across the Void itself to call out and command them to set her free. Delilah’s real power had never been in what the Outsider gave her.

Emily covered Delilah’s hand with her own and leaned in. She could make a compromise, maybe. Take her up on her offer and let her out of this cell and into Emily’s rooms, keep her in a wider cage and under watch. The idea held a certain appeal, even beyond the obvious, to have the enemy who had caused her so much trouble kept like a pretty little caged bird.

But no, Delilah had already come up from nothing once, had turned Emily’s own people from a continent away. She could not be trusted loose within the Tower walls.

Emily squeezed her hand once, then stepped back. “Sorry,” she said, “but what you really want from me isn’t something I’m willing to give up again. I don’t want you to suffer, and I won’t abandon you down here, but you won’t be leaving.”

The cell door rattled again on its hinges, and Delilah’s angry shout followed her out of the room until the heavy door shut behind her. Emily let out a weary sigh.

She had thought it a mercy to spare Delilah to the Void, but perhaps the greatest mercy would have been a swift execution.

She reached up and touched her cheek absently, brushing lightly over the pinprick indents Delilah’s fingernails had left, and heat twisted within her stomach. She would come back to her again. Maybe something would change. Maybe Delilah could be trusted one day.


End file.
